German Church records are usually well organized and can give a
lot of information about a person. Two examples are provided and are from the
Wehdem Church records. Many churches in this area followed the same or a similar
format. If you are looking at Levern or Dielingen records for example, you might
some variances, but you should be able to figure out the information from these
examples. These come from the late 1800s and early 1900s, which are easier
to read and are entered in a pre-formatted book. Earlier records generally carry
the same or a similar format. The earliest records still available (1600s) do
not follow this method and is more of a paragraph-style entry, but have much of
the same information. First, you'll need to know
some key German words. Please note that your
monitor resolution may affect how easily you can read these samples and you may
need to change resolution to improve both viewing and printing. These are best
printed in landscape format. With resolution 800x600 and landscape format, you
should be able to print the entire images. These are just a couple of examples
and, as a result, do not show all the possible entries for some columns.